Why is hitler considered a greater evil than stalin?

Question

Its seems a clasic example of the effetcs of propaganda.
Clearly, stalin , who had 20 million under his belt before the war, who continued to murder at will to protect his own position rather than pursuing an ideal, is surely the greater evil.Hitlers ideals were rightly or wrongly for the benefit of the german people.
The same propaganda that was used to encourage popular support of against the more immediate threat of hitler has filtered down through generations.There cannot be a soul that would rather live under stalins regime than under hitlers.Even jews suffered prejuidice,banishment and murder under stalin.
Please be objective in your answers.

Answer 1

I personally think Stalin is worse. He had even thicker skin and didn't even have the grace to kill himself (although Hitler only did this to escape punishment!). I think Stalin is the bigger psycho as he had more positive/family relationships through out his terrors whislt pursuing his murderous path. more opprotunities for finding a better path. He didn't have as fucked up a background as Hitler and less excuse for his evil. l think he is the beast of the book of Daniel (in the Bible) - it talks of four empires, one of which is the bear, which is allowed to chew up so many souls.



Hitler is more immediate to the Europeans. Stalin's horrors were mostly perpetrated in the Soviet Union. They weren't against a clearly definable enemy (he ended up killing people so close to him) and the worst was you didn't know why you might be suddenly an enemy of the state. But unlike Hitler did not spread his wings across Europe.



But there really aint much to choose against Hitler. Stalin just got away with it for longer. It seems he was more of an annihilating personality whereas Hitler surrounded himself with like-minded psychos. willing even to go further than he had dreamed. From what I've read, Bresnev was nearly as bad as Stalin. Russia needs to move away from its ideas that it is tougher, more able to take the horror than other nations. That they are strong where others are weak. It is this that allows toleration of such evils.

Answer 2

First, Charles' answer adresses valid points to why the Allied governments treated Stalin and Soviet brutality with a blind eye compared to Hitlers'. The answer to your question lies more in developments after the war then occurences during. It is to be noted that the Holocaust for example was rarely mentioned, even by Jews, up until the mid 60's. The Soviets were the enemy now and would have taken the most brutal award back then had the West known exactly what was happening behind the Iron curtain ( Let alone what was going on in Mao's domain). After the 67 Israeli war however, the perception of having Israel as an ally became entrenched in the Elite American circles ( Jew and non-Jew). It is at this point that suddenly, the Holocaust is a very practical tool to use politically to further support Israel. In the 50's, the World Zionist Congress would not beat down the Germans too much because it was important to have West Germany as a strong and important ally. Once it was back up ( And able to be financially exploited), and this new perception of Israel could be profitable, suddenly Hitler and the old Germany became the evil boggey man of all times. Stalin's army raped 2 million women in East Prussia in a period of 6 months, raped another 45,000 women in Berlin in a 3 day period. These were only those incidents in the end of the war. This type of information, though true, was not profitable, but exploiting Germanys past suddenly became so. Hitler gets the attention because it became more politically convenient and profitable. It would be also dificult to defend a Potsdam conference where the West gave up half of Europe to Soviet brutality if indeed that brutality was worse than Hitlers. That was sadly the case though...

Answer 3

Stalin was as much of a crook as Hitler was. I think that Hitler scores higher on the 'bad guy list' because today, there are so many people still alive who survived his regime and lost family and loved ones.



Additionally, it has to do with the mentality of the time: Russia - tucked away behind the Iron Curtain - was the bad guy already, and not too many people cared about what was happening there. All that mattered was that Russia didn't park some nuclear device in America's front and back yard.



Hitler in the other hand was involved in nasty practices towards citizens of America's allies. Obviously, that made more of an impact.

Answer 4

I guess you're looking at winners and losers. In terms of deaths then almost certainly Stalin is the greater evil - 20M dead as opposed to 10M. But these numbers are meaningless - every single one of them was someones parent or child and they all died because of an idea or an ideal.



In the west, Hitler is seen as the bigger evil since it's only really over the past 10 years or so that the true scale of the War in the East and the brutality of it has become more widely known.



I'd have to say that Hitler was the truly evil one. Stalin, whatever his political purges and internal machinations and suppression in Russia before 1941, caused most of his deaths as a reaction to what Hitler did - yes, he sent people to their deaths in great waves, yes his incompetence as a general caused huge losses, yes he was paranoid and ignored good advice and intelligence (even to the starting date for Barbarossa) but it was all, essentially, because he was invaded when he wasn't ready for it and certainly wasn't geared up to respond and he had to do something.



Hitler on the other hand made it clear from very early on that he was after the Jews, even if the industrial death camps weren't there right from the start (the concentration camps were there pre-war, but then us British invented those, I believe, in the Boer War). So he intended extermination of the Jews - and Gypsies, Communists, Homosexuals right there. His evil extended to making the German Wehrmacht & SS his instruments - read about what the 'ordinary' soldiers did during Barbarossa and later and see if you can believe them when they say they didn't know what was going on. Atrocity became, at Hitlers instigation, the method of war that has been popular amongst tinpot dictators and bullies worldwide.



It's all a bit pointless in one way to consider one worse than another - there could have been upwards of 50M people killed in WW2, no-one will ever know for sure. The important point is have we learnt from it and what would YOU do if you had total power of life and death over helpless people? The first answer is NO, the second might make you uncomfortable.....

Answer 5

Hitlre is considered to be a greater evil than stalin due to the fact that Hitler had more campaigns and more ideas on exterminating people that he actualy put into practice. I am sure give half a chance Stalin would of done the same but Hitler got a greater following and was more persuasive at implementing his ideas. Also the Jewish population has made Hitler a prime example of racial degradation and the slaughter of people based on race. And there is a constant reminder on one or more documenteries every year about the awful crimes taht were perpatrated on Jews and other minority groups at the time which were orchanstrated by Hitler.



And to a degree you are right - Hitler according to history books did offer the Jewish people to England, Spain and another country but those countries said no so he exterminated them. At the time there appears political motivations on all sides.

Answer 6

Hitler has performed many acts which turned to be more visible afterwards (Holocaust) than the horrors performed by Stalin in a closed country, far far away..



Another point of view: Hitler started World War II, Stalin did not.



Third aspect: Staling was among the winners of World War II - Hitler didn't.



Still one issue: so many people in Western Europe have had personal sorrow because the German actions during World War II. But how many know some close person who has been transported to Siberian prison camps to die?

Answer 7

I don't think you can legitimately compare which was a "greater evil." The destruction they each wrought was the result of huge synergies of human weakness and cruelty, not only the evil of one man. (The idea that Hitler thought he was working for the German people is, I think, not a good way to compare him favorably to Stalin, because even that dovetailed into amplification of the evil that was accomplished) I think that the overall destruction of human life and dignity wrought by the Stalin regime is clearly much greater in magnitude, in an objective sense.



I do think that the way history has been written about each, in the English language, has been influenced by historical circumstances having little to do with what the regimes actually did. The simplest example being, Hitler's military aggression towards other nations makes it easier to demonize him in narratives; but there are many other circumstances, including the context of what "we" were willing or able to do about each of them.



There are theories, of course, about the reason why "we" have come to think of Hitler as the exemplar of evil in the 20th century, having to do with propaganda. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I agree that where I lived, a lot of manipulative and possibly exaggerated narratives of the Holocaust had been produced and disseminated - I remember sitting in class watching a video and crying my eyes out. I never even heard of Stalin till high school! However, the principle of parsimony still strongly inclines me to believe there are other circumstances besides deliberate agendas, that leads us to iconify Hitler more than we do Stalin today. Those Holocaust narratives were just as easily an emotional outlet about the war generally, as they were propaganda. The story of Stalin just wasn't as amenable to that purpose.

Answer 8

Hitler is considered the greater evil because we beat him and the victors get to write the history.



Serious historians look upon the two world wars as a single war with a 21 year truce to enable each side to rear a new crop of cannon fodder. The fact that we declared war on an old friend as a result of a Serbian killing an Austro-Hungarian aristocrat was as smart a move as Tony and George's latest folly. With so many deaths in WWI, a cover up was needed which included keeping mum about the Soviet Union.

Answer 9

Hilter lost WWII and in the ensuing cleanup, his crimes were laid bare. Stalin was among the winners of WWII, and he had the advantage of a clamped-down Iron Curtain that obscured the extent of his crimes. I was always amazed at how he literally "rubbed out" people he had killed (that were close to him) from photographs as if they had never existed. He kept his evil secret, especially from his own people, and that allowed him to get away with it longer and also ensured that fewer people could call him on the carpet about it either during his reign or after his death.



Also, Hitler advertised his hatred and published his great plans in "Mein Kampf" for all to read; it was not hard to guess from the fallout that there was evil only thinly hidden inside Germany. His brand of propaganda exhorted the common German to turn against the Jew, the disabled, the homosexual, etc., anyone who was not of "Aryan" stock, while Stalin operated quietly, not advertising who he was going to get rid of next, a much more Mafioso style.

Answer 10

If you ever get the chance ,then read "The victims of Yalta" by Nicolai Tolstoy ,that will ot only show what a truly evil man Stalin was ,but will also explain why so little of his crimes are reported in the West .1000's of men women and children were sent by the British post war government and more particurly the war office on ships from Glasgow,Liverpool and London to certain death in the Soviet union .

Might be hard to beleive but it is all there in black and white .That is probably why so little is said of Stalin regime

Answer 11

Propaganda. Stalin did it within their borders; There is no big war and neither consequent motives to bring attention to this subject.

Wolrd runs around money, publicity and media. There is no way out. What Stalin (and many others governments, people) did are part of History; What Hitler did is part of another kind of movement with different kind of interests. It is related into a bigger concept within a more complex context.

Real problem isn't genocide, but another political and cultural factors involved.

Another interesting aspect: Its easier to hold all attentions to only one big event than divide attentions to two different events. Genocide is more easy to keep in mind if associated to only one factor; people will remember easilly and all propaganda will be concentrated into just one fact.

Hitler lost war and have no opposition; Stalin and comunist were alive yet and its more difficult do bring dead to life if you understand what I mean.

Answer 12

He was a mortal enemy of all peoples that he disparaged as racially inferior to his Nordic master race: Jews, Slavs, blacks, to name a few. Stalin knew of hitler's intention to enslave the Slavic peoples and that is why he saw ww2 as a war to protect the Russian motherland from fascist encroachment and treachery. Some Slavic peoples in the Soviet Union who had been mistreated by Stalin during the 1930s looked to hitler for support, but later changed their mind after knowing that hitler thought of Slavic peoples as subhuman.

Answer 13

there both evil from a capiltailist point of view but if you a communist or a nazist then both these men where heroes



adolf hitler may have killed millions but he also rebuilt the german economy in record time put millions back to work with his civil building plans created a mass road and rail network that was second to none in its time, it was when he was given supreme power that he went mad



joesph stalin also killed millions it took him longer but he exceded the nazis total but he also laid the foundations for the strongest country the world has ever seen the USSR was lead the way in science, technology, military power was a world leader in art, and history, it had radical idears that many other coutries adopted even western powers got idear from the soviets none of this would have been posible without stalin



so both men ended up being seen as evil dictators by us in the west but they started out as visionaries who saw the world (in stalins case) or germany (in hitlers case) for what they couldve been.



as for hilter being considerd more evil than stalin i think its because stalins crime were mostly within his own borders on his own people so didnt affect anyone directly in the west but hitlers crime were mostly to people outside his borders so us in the west were affected on a personal level i lost family in the blitz that makes me see hitler as the more evil

Answer 14

I consider them both pretty evil. Consider this, Stalin's mass killings were mostly before WW II (100,000 a year), and mostly from his purges and 'collectivization in early 30's with the latest estimate of around 20-30 million dead. His genocide wasn't a full time occupation to his death, unlike Hitler, but that's where the comparison stops.



When comparing the two, both were evil, both put people in concentration camps, both committed genocide, both were dictators, both...well you get the picture. The one factor Hitler had over Stalin tho, Hitler was insane. Stalin was just angry and distrustful.



Other things to consider,Stalin killed more people, Hitler started WW II, Hitler killed the Jews and some people in his nation, but he started the war that resulted in many troops dying on both sides. Hitler may be considered the greater of both evils; tho Stalin killed more people it is said, Hitler's action ensured that those loses were as high as possible.



It is my conclusion that Hitler may be the 'evil-er" of them all, but comparing the them is ludicrous, now that i think about it, so just forget about it!

Answer 15

I think you are right but the propaganda was also used to cover the fact that the allied nations did something about Hitler only because he was coming in through the back door and they chose not to deal with Stalins atrocities because it did not suit.

Answer 16

The main reason I can think of is that for most of the war, Stalin was on our side.

Answer 17

unfortunately for all of us they were both evil equally, the entire world is better off without either, and theres a whole bunch of names that can be added to that list from a to z. attilla to zeodung. both male and female.

Answer 18

I guess because he was on the ailled side during ww2

Answer 19

They were both as bad as each other, Hitler was just more explicit about it.

Answer 20

better P.R.

Answer 21

to me ya!!!